OK, I hope you can forgive the clickbait headline – but I wanted to lure you in to my “secret” formula to making money online. There are no downloads, ebooks or online videos to view and you can start now. It really is very easy if you follow these 9 steps.

My 9 Step Program to Online Wealth

Get Good at Something: Everything takes a little practice, so don’t expect to make money straight away. Invest your efforts into becoming the best at whatever it is you want to do. This might take a little education, training and a lot of experience. This might mean getting a job and learning from someone who has already put the hours in.

Get to Know Your Potential Customers: If you don’t have a customer facing role, this might be a problem. Go out of your way to get to know your customers. Spend time with them on online forums, social networking groups and industry events and, this might seem really uncool in this digital age, pick up the phone and speak to them. This is a vital step in the process if you are going to get the next step right.

Understand Your Potential Customers’ Problems: Every potential customer has a problem. If you can help enough of them solve a particular problem, you’ll be well on your way to delivering a solution that will help you make money. If you haven’t got a problem to solve – you probably haven’t got a business.

Develop a Solution to Solve Your Potential Customers’ Problems: You will not make big money online with a cookie cutter solution, so it’s time to develop your own. This will involve rigorous rounds of testing and development. If you don’t have a big budget, you may be able to get around the problem by investing a ton of time instead (but you’ll probably need both).

Prove Your Solution: Your initial customers (often referred to as beta customers) will help you prove if your solution works or not. These are the people who will also help you with your initial marketing efforts in the form of testimonials and referrals.

Ramp Up Your Marketing: OK, this is where you start going crazy with your marketing. Work hard to capture potential clients’ interest in your solution by showcasing how you helped your beta customers. Once you have captured their interest – maintain it by employing a consistent strategy of email and social media marketing activities.

Close the Deal: Never be afraid to speak to a customer to close the deal. In some cases, email, social media and a good eCommerce-enabled website might be enough to bring the money in. However, particularly with more complex products or services, nothing beats a little human engagement.

Employ Amazing Customer Services: Keep your customers happy at all costs. It’s much easier to sell to an existing client than find a new one. These people are like gold, you should treat them as such.

Keep Innovating: Every product or service has a lifespan. Don’t let your business die because your products are getting a little tired.

Note: Money is the by-product of a great product or services and amazing customer care. Even rock stars have to invest time, effort and money into building their careers – so why should you be any different.

Focus on your customers, your product/services and your ongoing customer care – and you won’t go wrong. Take your eye of the ball and look for an easy solution – and it’s all going to go wrong.

Read the latest from our blog

If you sell exactly the same product or service, in exactly the same way and with exactly the same service levels as your competitors, you’ll always struggle to win customer loyalty and charge those elusive premium rates that drive real profits. The same old, same old just creates a race MORE…

Do you remember the first time you swung a golf club, rode a bike or kicked a football? I’ll bet you weren’t very good at it, but because you enjoyed it, you persisted, practiced and as you improved, your passion for your chosen sport or hobby became ingrained in your MORE…

I had an interesting conversation with a senior marketing manager last week about her ongoing content marketing strategy. She pretty much had everything in place: a good blog, some solid testimonials and case studies, a regular flow of social media posts and some decent landing pages. Her problem was driving MORE…